Cedar Park, TX

Goddard School parents sometimes ask us this question and here are some insights to the topic of bullying.

The majority of American parents have become increasingly worried about the probability that their children will be confronted by bullies, and they’ve begun to ask for solutions. Here are some statistics on bullying.  A recent Harris poll found that two-thirds of parents worry that their preschool/kindergarten children will be bullied. Though bullying has been a part of human experience since before recorded time, our shrinking world increases its presence and possibly forecasts an increased toll to our children. My grandparents believed, ‘what didn’t break you, made you stronger’; today, we’re a little more worried about the ‘breaking’ coming before the ‘strengthening’ – especially among our youngsters.

Bullying is a problematic, but not inevitable, part of human interpersonal business. It differs from the usual scrapes and chafes of everyday life because of its intentional nature. Toddlers and preschoolers are busy working on their unique sense of self, using newly learned personal pronouns to announce what’s theirs. This includes their toys, body parts and random objects that catch the eye (see Toddler Property Laws in my book, ‘Me, Myself and I’). So, when someone unknowingly violates one of these property laws, ‘No, mine!’ gets screamed and a brief, small (in the scheme of things) social encounter of an aggressive nature may occur. A parent or teacher usually handles such incidents with some helpful words and – it’s on with the day.

Bullying, however, is an intentional, aggressive act – social or physical – with the sole aim of intimidating a peer. Such acts happen daily on the margins of adult supervision and as such are witnessed by most peers. Most of the children we know have either been a perpetrator, victim or bystander – since as long as they can remember, these three jobs may even be a continuum.

We are born with a drive to master the world around us, and a portion of selfishness and aggression seems to be part of everyone’s tool kit. Parents begin early by helping their children get the ‘dosage’ right, helped along by culture and society’s expectations. One of nature’s partners in this process is the innate capacity for empathy which shows up, developmentally, in the middle of the second year of life. Remember the toddler offering (temporarily) his binky or blankie to a sad friend?  How do we get from there to Michele Anthony’s descriptions of the painful social bullying in her Little Girls Can Be Mean: Four Steps to Bully-proof Girls in the Early Grades - in just a few short years? Well, we could go on forever, but in this article’s worth of advice, I know parents are pretty sure they’d like to strengthen their child’s defenses against distressing stuff.

Supporting an early drive to care for one another is the winning strategy. The brain –and its hormonal partners- treat acts of kindness and caring with the same special care as it does warm human relationships. The ‘relationship hormone’, oxytocin, increases whenever such acts are performed, improving our capacity to regulate our emotions and get our aggression and selfishness under control. If parents can ‘catch’ their children in small acts of kindness and add a few words to explain why this feels good – to them and to the child, and why they value it so highly – resilience to bullying when parents are not around is under construction.

Speaking up about how we treat each other is an especially powerful tool in anti-bullying strategies because it has the power of majority.  Bullying feeds on our silence. Let’s help each other and our children find our voices.

About us:  The Goddard School of Cedar Park is the only private preschool & kindergarten in Texas accredited by both AdvanceEd-SACS and NAC.  Call us if you’re interested in more information about our nationally recognized program at 512-258-5292.

Back-to-school season is here and Cedar Park-area children are probably getting excited about shopping for new clothes and being able to see their school friends.  And, while education is an essential part of growing up, Butch Aggen of The Goddard School located in Cedar Park, says other factors like waking up earlier in the morning, brushing teeth and packing a school lunch are also important, as it helps develop an organized lifestyle and further a child’s growth. 

“It is so important for children to get into the routine of going to sleep at a reasonable time, knowing what daily morning chores they need to accomplish each day and other things of the like,” Aggen said. “In addition, the school year is great because it allows children to be around their peers more often throughout the day, and this promotes social stability. We encourage parents to get the ball rolling and start implementing these routines – even before the school year begins.”

Routine establishes many aspects of healthy living, good habits and good behavior that even the slightest structure can make a huge difference in a child’s day-to-day life, Aggen said. Aggen suggests parents, with young children, ask themselves the following questions:

• Do you post a list of nighttime and morning to-dos on your child’s bedroom door or on the kitchen refrigerator as daily guidelines for your children?
• Do you read a bedtime story to your child each night?
• Do you have a designated area in your child’s room or elsewhere in the home for your child to store his or her coat and school book bag?
• Does your child have a bedtime on school nights and on weekends?
• Do you wake up your child in the morning? Or, does your child have an alarm clock in his or her room to wake up on time?

About The Goddard School

The Goddard School (www.goddardschools.com) is a nationwide franchise of Goddard Systems, Inc. headquartered in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. With over 330 franchised schools nationwide and 42,000 children enrolled, Goddard is the fastest growing preschool in the United States.   The Goddard School of Cedar Park is nationally accredited by both Southern Association of Colleges
Schools and National Accreditation Commission.

At the Goddard School, a private kindergarten and preschool located in north Austin, parents with new arrivals ask at times how to best handle arrival of a sibling with the older child.  Here are some great ideas from Dr. Kyle Pruett:

Nothing unsettles the lives of children quite like the birth of a sibling: special event for parents = profound disruption of familial bliss for children. Some children take it in stride, but the majority may not. Having a sibling forces children to share the wealth in an important and healthy adaptation to living in the real world. Here are a few ideas about how to ease the pain, and promote the joy:

• ‘Me, myself and I’ – The mantra of toddler-hood reminds us that 18 to 24 months finds most kids falling short of being able to participate in the care of a younger sibling. They have just begun to take care of their own business, so looking after someone else’s (with whom you have to share mom and dad) is annoying to say the least.

• By 48 months: Children are able to feel some ownership of a new baby – rocking, diapering, comforting, and playing with a baby are possible, if not always high on their list of fun things to do. They own enough familial territory by now that they can afford to share.

• A younger sibling often adores an older sibling. Teach your older one (don’t ignore the boys) to be tender and gentle when holding or feeding the baby. This is great training for future intimacy and competent parenting.

• Preserve time alone with your older children several times a week. They may no longer be the ‘only,’ but they are the still the ‘first,’ and certain privileges pertain, along with new responsibilities!

• Don’t underestimate how your own experience as a sibling -in a particular birth order – affects your perception of your children’s experience. You may be off by a mile in your evaluation of your child’s jealousy of a new baby if you are the baby in your own family, or the first-born.Keep the dialogue open with your children about the shape of their sibling relationships and you will learn a lot.

Interested in more information about Goddard School?  Join our email list for monthly events at our school at the link under the blog roll.

Come visit us for this special event that’s sure to “wow” your young child at The Goddard School!

The Austin Remote Control Association will be flying various planes and helicopters as part of our “Transportation” theme in the month of May.  They will learn insights about how planes fly and how these minature versions of the real thing are constructed!

No charge but please RSVP as we expect quite a turnout for this fun activity!